State Champ, Initial Thoughts on New GW2 Content and More ESO

 I'm getting a third post for February in just under the wire.  Thank goodness it's a leap year.  I've been traveling a lot recently, which has cut down on my play and blogging time.  As I've mentioned, my younger two kids are both competitive swimmers.  My middle son swims for his University, Carnegie Mellon, and my youngest swims for his local high school.  I was in Chicago two weeks ago for my middle son's conference championships.  

He finished 7th in his main event, the 50 Free, which was disappointing as he was leading at prelims.  However, on his relays, one of his relays finished 2nd, and two of them finished 3rd, which was a good outcome.  He has qualified for the NCAA National Championships in 4 events - the 50 Free, the 200 Free Relay, the 200 Medley Relay, and the 400 Free Relay.  Those are happening in Greensboro, North Carolina, near the end of March.

Last weekend, my youngest son won the Ohio State Championship in the 50 Free and 200 Medley Relay.  His team also finished 2nd in the 200 Free Relay.  It was a fun weekend, and we're very proud of him.

In gaming news, I ran through the new Guild Wars 2 content on my Machinist.  The story in this expansion continues to be pretty good, although I miss some of our old friends from earlier expansions.  That's one thing that FFXIV does really well.  The events in the zone are a lot of fun, and the storyline is challenging and engaging.  I've also started through it on my Reaper, so we'll see how that goes.  

In Elder Scrolls Online news, I continue to work on leveling those three alts.  My Nightblade is at level 38, the Dragonknight is at level 38, and the Necromancer is at level 24.  I'm continuing to work through Main Story Quests in their Zones and then doing the Daily Dungeon.  I also tried doing the Daily PvP thing to see if the bonus xp from that would be worth doing.  I may try it again, but I did two different battlegrounds and finished last both times, so I got no bonus xp.  I did get a couple of decent pieces of gear, though.

Beyond that, I have yet to play World of Warcraft or FFXIV.

That's the update for this week!  Cheers!

Joar

Continuing the Alt Leveling Run in Elder Scrolls Online

 For the past week, when I've had some play time, I've mostly continued my run at leveling alts in Elder Scrolls Online.  I got my Sorceror to level 50 and am now working on a Nightblade and a Dragonknight.

As I mentioned last week, I intended to start the Nightblade as a Stamina spec and try doing Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood content along with the Daily Dungeon and PvP stuff to level him.  I think I've decided to switch back to Magblade and go the regular MSQ route for leveling instead.  I just think I'm not a sneaky sneaky style of player.  I much prefer just charging forward and smacking things.  Or at least blooping them from a distance with my spells.

The Dragonknight also seems fun so far.  Right now, the Nightblade is sitting at level 22, and the Dragonknight is at level 13, so I have a way to go on both.  After that, I will do a Necromancer, and then I might try leveling a Warden as a healer just for something different.

I also hopped back into World of Warcraft to continue getting renown on the Niffem guys and the Dream Wardens.  I reached Renown level 18 on the Niffem, which let me snag their mount.  As one of the hundreds of mounts I now have in Warcraft, I'm sure it's fine.

I'm still not really doing anything in either Final Fantasy or Guild Wars 2 these days.  Guild Wars 2 has more content coming out later this month, so that may change, at least for a while.

Playing Mostly Elder Scrolls Online Lately

My intentions of sticking to a once-per-week blog posting schedule were quickly thwarted by some business travel two weeks ago and then a rough week last week getting caught up.  However, we're back this week.  

I came down with the flu this weekend, so my wife has me quarantined in a guest bedroom as our youngest son is coming into high school championship season for swimming,  and me getting him sick at this point would not be well received!  

So I might even get more than one post per week to get at least partially caught up.

In terms of video games, I've beey playing Elder Scrolls Online this week.  That's one of those games that I am always really comfortable with but just don't find myself playing that often.  I've decided, like with most other games that I play, to go ahead and try to get a character of each class to max level.   My original main, which is a Magicka Templar, has been there for quite some time, and I just finished getting a character of the new Arcanist class to max.

I'm now working on a Sorceror and after that, I plan to work on a Nightblade.  The Sorceror is sitting at level 45, so almost done with that one.  I have them spread out pretty well between the various factions, so that will give me different storylines to play.  I've been doing a random dungeon once per day as well because that's huge experience.  Beyond that, I'm just trucking along with the various storylines in different zones.

I'm thinking about having my Nightblade be Thieves Guild / Dark Brotherhood to see if it's possible to level that way.  I'm guessing it's probably not, but it's worth giving a try.  I've also debated setting foot in some of the DLC Dungeons now that my Sorceror is level 45, but will have to see if that's even possible.  I'm not sure if those give higher levels of xp or not.

I haven't really done much of anything in Final Fantasy once I got my Island to level 20.  I've been logging in to World of Warcraft periodically to do Niffem and Dream Warden world quests, but that's about it for there as well.

That's about it for today!

Cheers,

Joar